Death's Embrace
by DarkHorseBlueSky
Summary: "She made many promises in her short mortal life but there were two in particular I found interesting: the promise that I would grow to hate her, and the promise that when she died, I would get at the very least her fist in my face." *My poor attempt at a love story. Companion to Death's Deception, but can be read separately. Thanatos's POV*
1. Death and Diane

**I don't own PJO. Or, on second thought, the Book Thief. For some reason, Death felt an impulse to travel from Markus Zusak's incomparably awesome writing to my own crappy writing and take his narration style with him.**

**Those of you who have read The Book Thief will know what I mean. Please, just bear with me here — it's a totally new writing style for me so it won't be as good as you might expect. A lot of the chapters will be shorter than you expect, but I'll try to update frequently.**

**Though there may be some similarities in Thanatos's style and personality, this is not a crossover.**

* * *

The sky was blue when I saw her first.

The sky was black when I saw her last.

I must be honest — it was not the first time I had cried.

* * * A REASSURANCE * * *

Please, trust me.

I am not a liar.

I am not usually deceptive.

I do not exaggerate — much.

I do not break promises unless I absolutely cannot help it.

So please, just take my word for it.

After all, this is my story.

Diane Javensen was a mortal unlike any I have ever seen.

She saw me. She stood before me without fear. But not only could she see me, she fought me and defeated me more times than I can remember. She made many promises in her short mortal life but there were two in particular I found interesting: the promise that I would grow to hate her, and the promise that when she died, I would get at the very least her fist in my face.

I will not hide anything — I got the fight she promised.

As you can probably guess, she also gave me a lot more.

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**Reviews are love...**


	2. Eyes Like Sky

**Ugh. What kind of update did they make to fanfic? It's screwing up my computer. Anyone else having problems?**

* * *

He was inside.

Personally, I like it when they are outside. I can look to the sky and find solace in the colors, and sometimes, I will lift the soul onto my shoulder and try to show them their name. I can always see their name in the sky. For some reason, most mortals cannot. But, at least with the ones who do not struggle as I loose their soul from the shell of a body, I keep trying. It's a kind of game I play, something to drown out the morbid monotony of my job.

It would make sense, though, that he would be inside when he died — he was diagnosed with lung cancer and for some inexplainable reason incapable of smell or taste. His skin was like old leather, except that it was leather of the unnatural white-gray variety that I have seen on women's accessories. His name was Timothy Javensen, and he was only sixty-five years old.

Many said (behind his back of course) that he looked decades older. He smoked too much for his own good.

He did not fight me. He was in one piece. His soul slid out of his still body like a drop of water from one of the many syringes they had used to administer his medicine. Compared to the screaming, thrashing souls of the death row convicts that I'd picked up a few hours earlier, he was easy work. I looked out the window and saw his name in the cerulean sky. I asked if he could too, and he shook his head. Nothing admirable, nothing amazing, nothing out of the ordinary.

No, it was a living one that caught my attention.

She threw open the door with an urgency that surprised even me, then stood frozen in the doorway as she stared — with a mixture of horror, surprise, sorrow, and disbelief in place of a single, simple emotion — at the body on the bed.

I had a feeling that I would want to watch this, so I sat down in the chair in the corner, Javensen's soul still in my arms.

The girl looked up and met my eyes.

Anger burned bright in her own.

* * * SOME FACTS TO CLEAR UP CONFUSION * * *

I cannot be seen while on the job.

The Mist takes care of that.

Even most clear-sighted mortals have trouble seeing me unless

I want to be seen.

Diane Javensen

was different.

Despite the fury in her sky blue eyes, her voice was emotionless.

"You took my grandfather," she said in a voice close to a whisper.

I studied her. She was no more than a girl, nine years old at the most, and rather small. Her hair was ringlets of gold. Though I felt no sense of pity or affection for her (I must admit that I sadly lack in the emotions department in most areas of my life), I have always been somewhat impartial towards blonds. Her aura was the color of sunset.

I replied, "I'm just doing my job."

* * * AN EXCUSE * * *

In all honesty, I hate my job.

Twenty-four-hour shifts, no vacations, whiny clients.

And not even a decent break room or a working coffee machine.

I simply do it because no one else is capable of doing so

and because

my salary is nothing to complain about.

The girl said nothing.

Then she looked at the chair I was sitting in. "Are you going to be using that?" She sounded like she was trying hard not to cry.

I stood up and moved towards the window. "No. You can have it."

She did not sit down. She kept staring at me, curiosity and sorrow and something akin to…that of the betrayed, perhaps, in those large blue orbs that seemed almost too big for her head. Then she knelt, bowed her head as if in prayer, and touched the back of her dead grandfather's hand.

As if in response, the soul in my arms reached out, as if to caress her curls for one last time.

I turned my back and melted into the shadows before he could.

* * *

**I will try to update every other day. If not, every three days. If not, then whenever I feel like it.**

**Reviews are love...**


	3. Alit With Ashes

**Coco Puff: Gah! You guys **_**really **_**love Saigico, don't you? Aha, I'm so glad I made you cry and want to ship them so hard. I'll try to put in some Saigico in later chapters, but no guarantees, and it won't be that much. If you guys REALLY want it, I'll modify the potential plotline for Death's Revival and shower you with all the Saigico I can squeeze through the narrow nozzle of Logan's POV. How's that sound? :}**

**And as for your review to Chapter 9 of Death's Deception…Vilas. Vilas County, Wisconsin. Why? Because I've been there.**

* * *

Next was a woman. Her name, coincidentally, was Rebecca Javensen.

She was in her early forties, and had died from smoke inhalation during a house fire. I never like picking souls out of fires. I am forced to weave between the oftentimes still-burning wreckage, find what remains of the body, and wrap their soul in my smoldering cape before we can leave for DOA. I have never particularly liked fire, though some say that gold fire suits me. I must agree with them. But only the thin, flickering tendrils of gold-white flame, like the kind that burns in the torches of Olympus. However, natural fire — smoky, red, angry fire — is only another thing that calls me to duty.

On this occasion, the fire had started in the kitchen. I know little more than when I found her, she was lying on the ground amid the billowing black smoke and trapped in her own blackened crisp of a human body. A rasping scream greeted me, and then her physical voice went silent. I lifted her thrashing soul and cradled her in my arms.

"Diane," Rebecca Javensen was crying, over and over and over like an agonized war chant. "Diane! Diane!"

We were outside now, in the backyard. My destination was the cherry tree in the corner of the yard, where the shadows were deepest. (Shadow travel after a fire was rather therapeutic for me — the tendrils of darkness seemed to always know how to brush away the ash and rubble just right.) But when I reached it, I did not melt into the darkness as I had intended. Instead I knelt, set Rebecca gently down onto the ground, and asked her what was wrong.

"My daughter," she managed to choke out.

I tried my best to smile. It was hard.

* * * SOMETHING AKIN TO A CONFESSION * * *

It is true that I am naturally quite scary.

But, please trust me —

I always try to be as reassuring as possible.

Usually.

"She's not with me," I replied. "She must be alive."

"Please," the mother begged. "Just let me check the mailbox. I always told her to wait near it if there was a fire."

So, merely to console her if anything, I lifted her trembling soul onto my shoulder and went (for lack of a better word — "teleported" might be a more accurate substitute, but I find that one rather melodramatic) to said mailbox. A girl stood frozen next to it, her face alit by only the flickering flames of her own burning house.

* * * SOME COLORS * * *

The sky was black, except

for the sky above the fire.

There, it was alit with faded

orange ash.

I recognized the girl.

Diane. That was her name, I knew now. Diane: a derivative of Diana, the Roman name for Artemis — Hypnos and I had had a few bad confrontations with Artemis over the millennia, so I cannot say I was not biased.

She was definitely older, thirteen if I am not mistaken. But for a girl barely in her teens, there was a brokenness in her eyes that almost alarmed me. A part of me wanted to go to the girl and comfort her. I held myself back from doing so, and made sure that the soul in my arms did not either.

But Miss Javensen (she was a single mother) became increasingly slippery to hold back when Diane turned and met my eyes. Her curly blond locks were streaked with ash and singed black at the ends, and the rest of her body and her clothes were no better off.

"You," she hissed in a voice hoarse from smoke, her eyes blazing. "You — you took my grandfather — and _my mother — " _She doubled over in a fit of coughing, and her mother wriggled against my hold. I held the latter back and glanced around.

"I'm not going to take you," I said, only partially convinced. "Not yet, at least. The ambulances and the firefighters will be here soon."

I could hear their wails coming closer, and I knew she could too. She put her hands on her scraped, bloody knees to keep herself from falling and managed to lift her head to meet my eyes again. "You…"

"I," I finished for her, "am only the result."

She was silent, only continuing to glare at me.

It became increasingly awkward.

So I left.

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	4. A Promise of Gold

**Chocoholic Minion: I wish I could say it will be up **_**soon…**_**but since I can't, I won't. I probably won't start writing it until after The Blood of Olympus comes out, because we all know how paranoid I am about writing fics set after books that are scheduled to come out but haven't yet. And if you don't, well, you do now. Sorry?  
I can tell you one thing, though…it will most likely be from Logan's POV.**

**chocykitty: I will never stop being amazing. Muahaha. X)**

**fan: I bet you can't.**

**Coco Puff: Yes, I've been to The Middle Of Nowhere. Called my grandma's house. Surprisingly, I still get cell phone signals.**

**Amaryllis: No! You have to regain your speech! Otherwise I won't be able to hear your reviews! D:**

* * *

I must admit that I am something of a stalker. People like Diane Javensen are annoyingly interesting to me, and, being the entity of insatiable curiosity that I am, I have to know.

Work is increasingly busy and at that time it was busier still — abortion had been legalized in the United States only a few years earlier and scooping up armfuls of mewling infant souls is not a great way to begin your day. I still wonder why I hadn't been invited to the debates, as my part in the gruesome process is a large one indeed. They could have used my input on the topic. And a few minor wars had just broken out in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East — I was really busy.

And yet somehow, I always found time to check up on the orphaned Javensen girl.

She was hospitalized for a few weeks and treated for smoke inhalation and lung damage, and I remember that during the earlier stages of that time I once found her name on my "pending" list and made a quick trip to check up on her.

* * * "PENDING":  
A DEFINITION * * *

When someone's name is on my pending list, it means that

their future death is uncertain

but is quite possible.

But not always do they die.

Sometimes doctors come through at the last

second.

Sometimes they manage to hold out longer.

Sometimes their life string is simply frayed —

an error of the Fates.

Just another "near me" experience.

They don't always die, and I often make the trip for nothing.

Within three weeks, she was completely healthy.

Healthy, but an orphan.

Her only relatives were her mother's sister's family, who lived in Ohio. A good thousand miles from her Colorado home. So, without anyone else to turn to, Diane packed up what few things had been salvaged from the fire — which wasn't much, only her mother's few jewelry pieces, some coins in a glass jar, and a heap of clothes that still stank of smoke — and traveled, with a police escort to ensure her safety, to her aunt's house.

You might expect her aunt and uncle to be heartless, insensitive people who locked Diane in the cupboard below the stairs and spoiled her pudgy, pampered cousins. You are wrong in many ways. Diane's new family was completely normal. Aunt Annaliase and Uncle Raymond were the frazzled yet loving parents of four kids, ranging in age from eight to sixteen — and all of them were boys. They weren't very well off, but they were happy to welcome Diane into their cozy family and did their best to make the girl feel at home.

It seemed sometimes as if they tried _too _hard, though — Diane was a shy person at heart, and being suddenly thrust from a quiet house of two into a crammed house of seven was somewhat overwhelming. Her aunt, the only other female in the house besides Nelson's goldfish, became one of her best friends and her most trustworthy confidant as Diane made the rough journey through adolescence and, inevitably, high school.

Which was probably why it struck Diane so hard when, three years after she had first come, her aunt was suddenly diagnosed with breast cancer and declared terminal.

I remember that when I came to collect Annaliase Tyler (as was her aunt's full name), Diane was sitting by the bed and holding her adoptive mother's hand. She was almost a woman now — and quite attractive, if I must be honest. She looked up when I came in the room, and she did not take her eyes off me until I left.

She made me a promise as I lifted her aunt's soul from its tumor-infested shell —

"You won't get me that easy."

I raised my eyebrow at her. "Oh? Really?"

At sixteen, she had seen more than many people of sixty have ever seen, and her clear, somehow ancient blue eyes showed it. But when she met my gaze, I could see the layers of her past resurfacing. Layers marred by the horrors of the flames that took her mother from before her very eyes, by the things she saw that regular mortals never seemed to understand.

"I promise you," she hissed, her voice sounding more like the angry young teen, even like the confused nine-year-old with every syllable, "that you, Death…will hate me."

I regarded her curiously, said, "I'm sure I will," and left the hospital room.

* * *

The sky was scarlet that evening.

Annaliase Tyler's name glowed gold.

* * *

**Updates will be sporadic for the next week or so. You know, with finals and all.**

**Review?**


	5. Death and Work

**Coco puff/jackfrostishot: Hehe…uh…about that…I had to disable PMing. For security reasons. Sorry?  
Also…I'm sorry…I found your actual penname funny…Jack Frost Is Hot, or Jack Frost **_**I Shot?**_**  
I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…I couldn't help it…  
Only a mind like mine would ever think that way. You're fine, dear.**

**chocykitty (to your review for WWDD): Yeah…sorry? I'm glad you liked it though...**

**Thanks to the rest of you for your reviews. Kudos for catching the reference.**

* * *

**Forgive me for any shortcomings in this chapter. I know very little about the ways of the military and was simply too lazy to research it.**

**Also, my computer crashed, so I had to write out everything on the office computer. I don't like this keyboard. It's…alien.**

* * *

I did not see her again for a long time.

But when I next did, she was on the battlefield.

* * *

I do not recall what, exactly, the cause for fighting was, or where it might have been, for I do not care much for these things. Maybe I should have found out. Whatever the answers, it's too late now, and the story is already over.

Diane Javensen lived with the Tylers until she was eighteen. In her hatred against me, she wanted to apply for med school, but education costs money and the Tylers did not have much. She had no real job; she was too high-spirited to hold a stable one for long. Eventually she moved out of the Tylers' home and into an apartment, held by her paycheck from the local McDonald's where she worked.

Then came the opportunity.

After a bit of research, she finally found what she was looking for and applied.

She applied to be a medic in the army.

Diane was naturally a soft, willowy girl, but five years living in a house of all boys had made her tough. In high school, she had been known as the only girl who could successfully take down each boy in the class, not necessarily one at a time. The deaths she'd seen in her short mortal life had hardened her, and she was wise beyond her years. Being in the army was not an unthinkable concept for her.

A bonus of the military medical branch was that it required no previous schooling. It did require a small fee for training before she would be deployed into combat, though, but with a bit of help from the Tylers', Diane managed to pay it off. She was a quick learner, and soon she was ready for work.

* * * "WORK":  
A DEFINITION * * *

The act of helping people escape me.

* * *

There was once a woman very similar to Diane Javensen — she lived back in the period of time known as the 1800s, and made her claim to fame in what mortals call the American Civil War. Her name was Clara Barton, and she was known as the Angel of the Battlefield.

When I finally took her soul, she had just smiled at me and said, "I suppose we're even now."

"I suppose we are," I had replied.

Barton had caused me a lot of trouble in her heyday, reaching in and snatching souls back from my grasp after I had made the trip to retrieve them. She had held respect for my power, and I'd held respect for hers. Mortals, after all, often never know how much power they can wield against me.

Diane, though, had no respect.

She understood my power, but she did not fear it at all. She stood and looked me in the eye many times — quite literally, in fact — and held her healing hand up to fend me off. She saw so much blood, so much pain, so much _me,_ but she just grit her teeth, wiped her sweaty brow, and kept fighting with the weapons that brought life.

She mocked me many times, repeating to her grateful patients, "I'm just doing my job."

I cannot count the souls she revived. If I tried, I bet that I would get a headache.

If her goal was, in fact, to make me hate her, then she was doing a very good job of it.

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**Reviews are love…**


	6. Funeral Apologies

**Aykaria: Hehe, I still can't really figure it out. I had something in the rough draft explaining that, but it didn't make much sense. I'll smooth it out a bit in this (in those later chapters that I have yet to write) but it might not make much sense anyway.  
****Meh.**

* * *

The brief spurt of fighting known as the Gulf War was soon over, and Diane returned home. The Tylers received her with a party and a place to stay while she rested — she had decided that she'd had enough of war and me for now, though she had a goal to be up and fighting me again as soon as possible.

I still had work to do.

* * * RAYMOND TYLER * * *

His soul knew

who he was leaving behind.

But he did not fight.

I will admit that I might have attended Tyler's funeral just to see how Diane reacted. I will also admit that she hadn't been present to see me take the only father figure in her life; the heart attack had happened when he was at work and he'd been dead before he hit the floor.

* * * THE SKY THAT WEEK * * *

It was gray when he died, on Monday.

It remained gray the day he was buried, on Friday.

Coincidentally, it was Friday the thirteenth.

I will admit one more thing.

I can be slightly sadistic at times. Just a little bit.

But I did not take Raymond Tyler's soul for revenge.

Okay, I might have thought it to be an interesting coincidence that Diane had just come home from war and me to find me again, and I might have thought that this would finally teach the impudent girl a lesson. I might have been a little smug as I took Tyler to the Underworld, and maybe, just maybe, I _might_ have been a little eager to find out what Diane would say to me next. Maybe I might have. You will never know.

…All right, fine. I admit it. I did.

But I wasn't exactly in a good mood, and you could not blame me. Hades had just decided to reduce pay for each and every one of his workers due to a "limited budget". This made no sense to me or anyone else for that matter. He was the god of wealth and he was on a limited budget. I personally think he simply wanted to round me down to five drachmas an hour because he's too lazy to multiply by seven, but that's just my take on it.

I took out the time to disguise myself as a mortal, an art that I am not particularly experienced in but did a pretty good job at anyway. It was a funeral and I was (still am and always will be) Death, so naturally I wore black. Upon glancing briefly into a mirror, I decided that though I preferred my billowing capes, I looked good in a suit.

The funeral was held outside, like all good funerals should be. Tyler's body was in a simple casket, nothing fancy, and the grave marker was a simple cross with his name engraved on it. The entire family was there, which wasn't much. Just Tyler's mother, his father-in-law, his mother-in-law, a few aunts and uncles and cousins, his four children, and Diane.

She was easy to spot — though there were quite a few tears shed, she was the only one with streams flowing down her face. Her shoulders shook; her head was bent over her lap; her lips released incomprehensible gasps. I had never seen Diane Javensen cry so horribly. I had never seen her so defeated.

I thought I would feel victorious when she finally bowed down to my power.

Instead, I felt like a thief.

As the relatives dispersed and Tyler's sons led the still-crying Diane back to the car, I finally stepped forward. I had lingered at the back of the funeral, saying nothing, doing nothing, looking at no one but Diane. No one had looked particularly at me, dismissing me as another relative or maybe a friend. But the Tyler boys — they weren't even boys anymore, they were young men — knew better.

Or rather, they didn't know. They didn't know who I was. Of course, they knew me, but not in this body.

"Who are you?" demanded the oldest one, whose name was Matthias.

I glanced at each of them. I could see they were ready and tense, as if to defend Diane in her weakened state. She only stared at me, something unreadable in her eyes.

"A friend," I answered finally.

Doubt flickered across Diane's face, but when the Tyler boys looked at her, she nodded and looked me in the eye. "You want to talk," she stated. Her voice almost broke my heart. It was thin and fragile, as if it could shatter any second.

I nodded. I do not know if I could have said something even if there was anything to say.

Diane looked down, then gently pushed her protective cousins aside and stepped towards me. I was somewhat surprised as she did, and when she motioned for me to follow her, I obeyed. She led me away from the boys — who continued to watch me carefully — and behind a grove of trees under which a few gravestones and a stone bench resided. It would do nothing to hide us, but it conveyed a clear message to her cousins that we wanted to talk alone.

"All right," she said shakily, trying and failing to sound sarcastic and strong. "Go ahead. Gloat. You know you've beaten me."

I didn't say anything, and, with a glare, she sat down on the bench and looked at her hands.

"I'm sorry," I said to the top of her head.

She looked up and met my eyes. Her own were rimmed with red.

"No," she said. "You're just doing your job."

I cannot say what I felt. I just sat down next to her and bowed my head, the silence saying everything I had to.

We did not touch. We did not speak.

I eventually had to leave.

Only afterwards did I realize that, even though it would have been a redundant question, I had never even bothered to ask if she was all right.

* * *

Her sky-colored eyes haunted me.

* * *

**I'm serious, guys. Review. Don't just look at me like that! REVIEW!**


	7. Part One: The Reaper's Gift

**I'm so sorry for not updating on that every-other-day schedule I promised. FanFic dot net was being very bad to me. I couldn't even post a review. And then I got a stylus for Christmas and spent the last forty-eight hours using ProCreate on the iPad...**_  
_

**Hmm. I can draw cover art. And it'll be _good._**

**Hopefully.**

**Hehe. My friend told me about this website, it's like "I Write Like" or something...I think it's iwl dot me/...I put in the first chapter of this story and I came out with "You write like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle"...**

**I'm kind of proud of myself. I love Sherlock Holmes. The original ones, that is.**

**Slenderniece-Daughter of Hebe: Aha, thank you...but really, I have little to no idea why all of you think it's so sad.**

**Aykaria: Meh. I didn't really know...I do like the foster family idea though...heh. Should've done that. But that wouldn't have fit with DD...maybe...**

**I dunno.**

* * *

After the death of the only father figure in her life, Diane, by now in her early thirties, was left alone. Her cousins had responsibilities elsewhere that did not allot time to care for an empty house and a veteran with no stable job and only a limited amount of money from the government. Eventually, she managed to sell the house and land a job as a doctor's secretary. The job didn't pay much, but it was enough for the bills of her small apartment.

She also got a boyfriend — a man named Walter Karels. I suppose he might have been considered "handsome", as mortals say, but he had an adventurous streak, an arrogant personality, and a complete disregard for me. Though he helped Diane out with her financial problems, I disliked him immediately.

He stopped helping his girlfriend with said financial problems when she kicked him in the groin so hard that he was sore for two weeks. Her violence was not unwarranted, though — he had tried to get into her pants when she was clearly not in the mood.

A few days after Diane dumped him (quite literally, in fact — she had picked up his limp body and dropped him into a snowdrift), life took a small nosedive, like lives tend to do. While driving, she lost control of her car, which was an outdated old thing that only worked fifty percent of the time and didn't like icy roads, and accidentally drove right into a telephone pole five miles from her house.

She was alive when I found her, thank Titans. Scratched by pieces of glass and a bit panicky, but alive. I couldn't think of anything to say when she met my eyes. Finally, I settled for, "You okay?"

She glared at me. "What do you think?"

I opened the car door for her. She got out. We stood a few feet apart, both ankle-high in snow. It was very cold.

The sky was white.

"That looks bad," I said finally, referring to the car.

"Oh, really?" Diane drawled.

I grimaced. I'd forgotten about her sarcastic streak.

She groaned and stared disbelievingly at what used to be a car. The pole had cleaved halfway up the hood, and for some reason all of the windows had shattered at impact. Her sarcastic demeanor slipped. "This is horrible," she groaned. "What am I going to do?"

I thought for a few seconds, and then I replied, "Nothing."

That withering glare was back and, once again, directed at yours truly. "Thanks for your input, but no. I can't pay for damage like this! I can barely pay the bills and now _this _happens?!" Her voice shook, like she was about to cry in frustration.

"No," I agreed, glancing at the car and then her, "of course you can't."

It took Diane a few minutes to put two and two together, but when she did, she whirled around to look at her car.

It was in one piece and completely out of the telephone pole.

I gestured towards it with a sweep of my hand. "Well?"

She gaped at me, then at the undamaged car. Her mouth was still open as she stepped forward and placed her hand on the once-crumpled hood. Even the rust had mysteriously vanished.

"You're most welcome," I said.

"Oh my gods," she breathed almost breathlessly. "But how…how…" She seemed to realize the more important question. "Why?"

I gave her that weird little half-smile that I have found to be very effective in giving people what they might describe as a creeping, chilling sensation. "Because," I replied, "I'm not exactly what you think I am."

Diane stared at me. The emotions playing across her face were too tangled to name, so I didn't try. I just gazed at her and waited.

Finally she bowed her head. "Thank you," she said, and turned to get into the car. I stopped her by speaking.

"You're not driving," I said.

She turned and stared at me, the unspoken question obvious.

"Not after that," I explained shortly. I then walked around to the other side of the car and opened the passenger door for her. Doubtfully, she got in, and I closed the door. I entered on the other side and sat in the driver's seat, then hesitated.

"You don't know how to drive," Diane deadpanned.

"Apparently you don't either," I replied.

(Only the first of the two statements was true.)

But I'd been around since cars were invented. I'd met every soul that had died in one of these. I knew what not to do.

Somehow, I managed to figure out which pedal was which and what made the car go backwards and forwards, with only a few snarky interjections from Diane and a few irritated replies from me. Our exchange went something like this:

* * * A CONVERSATION IN THE CAR * * *

"No, don't back out yet. You see the joystick?"

"The what stick?"

"This lever thing."

"Yes, I see it."

"Pull it back to R. That'll put the car in reverse and we can back out of this ditch. Now put your foot on the right pedal — "

"I know what pedal to press! Sheesh…"

"No, that's the wrong — OH MY GODS!"

"Whoops?"

"You said you knew what pedal to press…"

"You distracted me!"

"I did not."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"You don't want to argue with me."

She lapsed into silence.

"I didn't mean it like that," I said. I'm pretty sure I was doing what mortals would call "blushing".

Diane said nothing.

"Listen," I said to her, turning and looking her in the eye, "I am not going to kill you."

"Yet," she added.

I considered this. "Yes," I replied. "You're right. I am not going to kill you yet."

Her eyes took on a hard light. "Good," she said, "because I can promise you one thing."

I frowned. "What?"

"That when you do kill me, you're getting a fist in the face."

I coughed. "Let's get back to the driving lessons, shall we?"

* * *

I dropped her off at her house and left the car with her.

She watched me as I melted into the shadows.

She was smiling.

* * *

**The majority of the next two chapters will be fluff.**

**Except for maybe the end of Part Three.**

**Then it becomes kind of cool.**

**...**

**I really don't like writing romance fics...**

**REVIEW.**


	8. Part Two: The Reaper's Song

**chocykitty: That's probably it. The characters thing, that is. Or maybe I'm a writing jack-of-all-trades — capable of writing an fantasy/angst/hurt-comfort/friendship/family/romance/humor/crack/Lord knows what it is story with everything in it. Hehe. That would be AWESOME. But improbable.**

**Aykaria: I've thought of something, finally…**

* * *

Diane was a woman plagued by demons. Demons of the mind, that is — demons in the guise of memories and dreams. More correctly, nightmares. She saw the faces that she'd failed to save — her grandfather, her mother, her aunt, her uncle, the patients she had let slip into my grasp. They came back to ask her why. Why had she not saved them? Why couldn't she have done better?

* * * AN OBSERVATION * * *

From the view of dreams, there are two kinds of humans:

those who try to escape the nightmares

and those who try to prevent others from joining

the faces they see.

* * *

On one particular occasion (this was about a month after the telephone pole incident) I had been in the neighborhood when I saw the lights go on in Diane's apartment window. It was two in the morning and I had just picked up a child from a house down the street, who had suffocated in his own pillow during a nightmare. The parents of the child were still asleep and oblivious that their five-year-old son was dead.

The sky was midnight blue speckled with silver.

I still held the child's soul in my arms. He stared up at me uncomprehendingly, not saying a word. I glanced down at him, stroked his hair in reassurance, and stepped into the shadows.

I appeared in Diane's bedroom, which on second thought might not have been the best of ideas. She was curled up in her bed, cocooned in her own blankets. Her eyes were wide and bulged ever wider when she saw me appear, but then she relaxed a bit as she realized it was me. This is not something I can say often — usually, when I say that a person has seen me, the aforementioned person is usually panicking.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice thin and wobbling.

I glanced down at the child in my arms. She could not see him. Even clear-sighted mortals cannot see souls.

"I saw your light was on," I answered.

She was quiet as she looked down at the twisted, messy blankets. "I…I had a nightmare."

I shifted uncomfortably. Diane had turned on every single light in her apartment and it was making me kind of twitchy. I have to admit, I do like darkness better than light. People fear me more in the dark, and I cannot say that I hate the fear. It's rather therapeutic. Good for migraines.

"You have to go to sleep," I said with some awkwardness. "You have work tomorrow."

In the nest of blankets, she looked very small, like a child. Her voice matched this — it was weak and quiet, unlike anything I had ever heard from her. She sounded like the nine-year-old girl in the hospital room, just a child wanting her grandfather, or her mother, or her aunt and uncle back.

* * * THREE WORDS * * *

"Can you stay?"

I was taken aback by this request. But this beautiful young woman was so fearful, so alone that I couldn't refuse. The soul in my arms suggested a lullaby, though whether it was for him or for the living woman with visions of the dead I had no idea.

I sighed inwardly. I was not a singer. I did not even know if I could sing. But I knew what it was and a vague impression of how to do it, so I steeled myself, turned off all lights except the bedside lamp with a flick of my fingers, sighed again, and began to sing.

I chose a lullaby from Ancient Greece — I had heard a mother sing it to her child a few fleeting moments before he died of fever, and somehow I still remembered each word.

Naturally, it was a song about my brother. Of course it was. People do not write lullabies about Death.

The words themselves were in Greek but I did not think that either Diane or the child in my arms would mind. I would not have been able to translate the words in any case. I was concentrating on three things already: the management of my other forms as the many entities of me went about my business elsewhere, the controlling of my annoyingly deep voice as I tried to hit the right notes and at the same time keep them soft and comforting, and Diane's face.

I had never before realized how beautiful she was until she was scared half to me.

The soul in my arms gave a tiny, contented sigh and closed his eyes. He was not asleep. You cannot sleep if you are dead. I stroked his wispy, spectral hair as he relaxed and clutched the folds of my cloak.

Diane's eyes were also closed, but she too was still awake. It seemed as if my voice could in fact be soothing on some level, for even she relaxed. Her golden curls spilled over her shoulders and lay spread out on the pillow, and momentarily I felt an impulse to reach out and caress her hair too. But I stopped my hand and pushed aside the irritating impulse. I could not touch Diane Javensen. I would not.

When I had finished the song, the room was silent except for her soft breathing, signifying one thing — that she was alive. I could not tell if she was asleep.

Then her eyes opened and met mine. "Thank you," she whispered. "You have a beautiful voice."

I coughed. "Er…you're welcome."

The soul in my arms stirred and burrowed deeper into my cloak. I coughed again.

"I have to go," I told Diane.

She was quiet, her face inscrutable. Then she nodded.

"Do you want to keep the light on?" I asked her.

She nodded again.

"Okay," I said. "Good night, Diane."

I turned my back and stepped into the shadows, and I was halfway gone before I heard her voice reply, "Good night, Death."

* * *

**REVIEW.**


	9. (An Intermission Of Sorts)

**Coco Puff (to your review of Fighting Fire chapter 31: I realize that now...then, I was really tired. And when I'm tired, nothing makes sense. :P**

* * *

Hypnos is, as you probably already know, the god of Sleep and my brother. We have little in common — I can think of only two similarities among the many differences. I am tall and lean; he is rather short and chubby. My complexion is cinnamon; his is eggshells. I am dark and forbidding; he is light and soft. I never sleep; he is always sleeping.

(He has to live up to his name, after all.)

* * * THE ONLY SIMILARITIES BETWEEN BROTHERS * * *

The wings and the stubbornness.

The former is unimportant here. We both have wings, yes, though while mine are black, iridescent in the light, and well groomed (I am shamefully quite self-conscious) Hypnos's are white, blue in the light, and somewhat rumpled because half the time he doesn't bother putting them away before collapsing on his La-Z-Boy.

The latter similarity was something our dear mother, Nyx, despaired of on many occasions. When we want something answered or done, we will not stop until we have what we want. The way we go about getting it, though, is drastically different.

One of the reasons for this is because I have infinitely more patience than Hypnos does. I can wait literally lifetimes, during which I can plan and think and prepare and finally execute another method of persuasion if the other methods fail. Hypnos, however, is physically incapable of waiting five waking minutes to get something. He rushes at things and demands them done before he falls back asleep.

I of all people would know. He did it to me.

I had just dropped off a few more souls, harvested fresh from a fire in a German school, at DOA and was preparing to leave for more when suddenly a pajama-clad angel dropped out of the sky, snagged the back of my cloak, and whisked me into the sky.

"What the Hades — " I thrashed and looked up to find the identity of my abductor. "HYPNOS YOU LET ME GO RIGHT NOW OR I SWEAR ON THE STYX I WILL DUCT TAPE YOU TO HEPHAESTUS'S THRONE AND — "

I needed not finish my sentence. Hypnos promptly let me go.

I was flailing and falling very ungracefully through the air for a second before I regained my composure and remembered that I had wings. I decided to utilize these wings and lifted myself up to Hypnos's level, hovering so we were eye to eye. "Just what the bleeding Hades do you think you were doing?"

Sleep, as usual, looked annoyed and extremely drowsy. He rolled his cloudy blue eyes and folded his arms. "Whoa there, Thannie Mae. Take a chill pill or somethin'. Sheesh."

I gritted my teeth. "Please don't call me that."

"Okay, Lettuce Head."

I tried a different tack and imitated his eye roll. For some reason the Romans had come up with this brilliant idea of referring to me as Letus, hence Lettuce Head. Anyone else who tried this trick would have been vaporized. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't vaporize Hypnos, and I couldn't think of any ways to make fun of his name.

"Ignoring your highly irritating monikers for me," I said, "what do you want?"

Sleep's doughy face was wiped clean of mocking and took on a suspiciously sly look. I didn't like it. "I saw you," he said thickly, "with a girl."

I raised an eyebrow. "Half of my clients are female, Hypnos. Please specify."

He mimicked my facial expression by wiggling both of his eyebrows. "A girl," he repeated, "who wasn't dead."

I pretended not to know what he was talking about. I told him so with a perfectly straight face.

"You were singing to her."

I repeated that I had no idea what in Hades he was talking about and that I thought he was an idiot.

"I know when you're lying."

I hesitated. It was the wrong move, even if it was unintentional.

"You've got a beautiful voice," he mocked.

This was the last straw. I darted forward and clamped my hand over his mouth. "What did you see?" I hissed.

He made some completely unreadable facial expressions and eye movements, many of which were eye rolls. I got the message and freed his mouth, but I didn't stop glaring.

"Whoa," my brother drawled. "So sensitive! Sheesh."

"Get to the point," I said.

Hypnos sighed. "You know what, no. I didn't see much. Just the song and you turning your back on her. I just know…" He wiggled his eyebrows again suggestively, "that you're in new territory. You've got something going on."

I pretended not to know what he was hinting at, and I told him so.

He flashed me a grin. "Ya know," he prompted, "the L word…"

"I don't have leprosy, Hypnos, thank you for your concern, I will just be going now," I said in one breath.

He snagged my cloak and kept me from leaving again. "Not _that _L word. You know, the four letter one…starts with L, ends with E…"

I sighed in defeat. "You're right," I said, looking at my feet and the ground far below. "I admit it. I have lice. Now thank you for asking, it's been nice seeing you, goodbye."

"No!" Hypnos gave me what kids these days would call the "duh" look. "You're so stupid, Thannie Mae, you know that?"

He told me what he thought I had and what I had known he was referring to all along. I whacked him.

"I do not fall in love," I said indignantly. "Never have, never will. And besides, she hates me, and I can't even touch her, so what's the point?" I knew I was blustering now, but I have to admit I was a bit desperate.

"You know that you just contradicted yourself," Hypnos pointed out. "By denying your love for a certain mortal and then explaining why a love is impossible, you have simply said that you were lying about not loving her and that you have been defeated."

"You're mocking me," I said.

"You're changing the subject," replied Hypnos.

I closed my eyes. My brother was the last being on Gaea's green earth who I wanted in my private life and the first one to put the pieces together. As kids these days would say, go figure.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Sleep smiling. "I thought so." He turned as if to fly away, but then he glanced back at me with wisdom in his eons-old eyes that I'd never seen there before.

"Maybe," he remarked, "Death and Love are more similar than I thought."

He vanished into a puff of white smoke before I could say anything.

* * *

**Hey. You with the face. Yes, you. See that little review button down there? Press it. It's getting lonely.**


	10. Part Three: The Reaper's Touch

**misaii: Oh dear. Well…you know who it is now, right?**

**chocykitty: YES! Someone caught it! I KNEW you would! I love how you get seemingly every reference I put out there…oh, and by the way, the sequel for Fighting Fire is up. Just to let you know.  
I will never stop being so amazing.**

* * *

When I next saw her, about a month later, she was at work.

No one died, I can assure you. But for a while, I and many others thought that someone would. A car, driven by a thoroughly terrified young man, pulled into the driveway of the clinic.

From the backseat, a woman screamed.

Diane, three nurses, and the doctor all dropped what they were doing (which really wasn't much; it was a slower day at the clinic) and rushed outside. Had the couple come a minute earlier, they would have helped the woman inside, but it was too late — the babies were already popping out.

Yes, babies. Twenty-one-year-old Kendra Gabriels had been pregnant with quintuplets, and they simply could not wait to get to a doctor to escape.

I watched from a distance as Diane sprinted back and forth between the car and the clinic, her arms full of supplies. I was reminded of her army days, back when I'd hated her and she'd hated me. She still hated me to some extent, I was convinced. I didn't want to think about my conversation with Hypnos. So I pretended it didn't happen.

Diane glanced my way once. The hard look in her eyes sent a very clear message — _you're not taking these._

I checked my list. Kendra Gabriels was on the pending list, as were her five unnamed daughters and sons. It wasn't a mystery why — Mrs. Gabriels was not a strong, healthy woman and wasn't exactly experienced in childbirth either.

"I'll see what I can do," I told everyone.

Only Diane heard me.

Miraculously, Mrs. Gabriels and her first five children survived.

* * *

I lingered around the clinic for a little while afterwards. It was the end of Diane's shift anyway, and I couldn't help it. I kind of wanted to drive her home again. But when she finally left and we were alone in the parking lot, she refused.

"How would that look," she asked me without looking my way, so as to not look as if she was talking to thin air, "if I sat in the passenger seat and the car drove away on its own?"

I realized the logic in this. I let her drive.

We both wondered why I still sat next to her.

* * *

* * * ANOTHER CONFESSION * * *

We still don't know why.

* * *

Diane stopped the car somewhere that was definitely not her apartment building.

"Where are we?" I asked her.

"The park," she replied, unbuckling her seat belt. "I'd advise you to look like a mortal."

I stared at her. "What?"

"You know," she explained as if speaking to someone stupid, "do that thing. You know, where you appeared for my cousins, and they could see you?"

I said something highly intelligent like, "Oh" and did so.

The change settled in, and Diane blinked. "Oh gods, you're hot."

I frowned and looked down at myself. I didn't feel "hot" in a black leather jacket, a t-shirt, jeans, and combat boots. The gold chain necklace that had spontaneously appeared around my neck was cold to the touch. It was only April, anyway, so it wouldn't be hot outside either. "What?" I asked.

"Never mind," she said, shaking her head and grabbing her purse. "Let's go."

"Go where?"

Diane flashed me a smile. "Out of the car."

I started blushing again.

* * *

I didn't know why we were walking or where we were going. I told her so.

"It's called a park trail," she explained.

I didn't like feeling ignorant, but I didn't like not knowing something. "What's it for?" I asked.

Diane laughed. "It's not _for _anything," she said. "It's just a trail. You walk on it, and you relax."

I found nothing relaxing about walking through a carefully preened forest in which you could still clearly hear the sounds of the main road. In fact it was kind of depressing because, for some reason, all the forest animals went silent when I passed and every blade of grass I stepped on inexplicably shriveled up and died. I told her so. She just laughed again. Her swinging hand (I have never figured out why mortals swing their arms when they walk) came dangerously close to mine, and I snatched it away. I put both hands in my jacket pockets to reduce risk.

The park trail ended by a large clearing paved with cobblestones, with a fountain in the middle of it and benches all around it. An ice cream vendor with his cart stood nearby. A couple sat on the edge of the fountain, eating ice cream and holding hands.

This obviously gave Diane an idea. She glanced at me and smiled.

"What?" I asked.

She jerked her head towards the ice cream vendor suggestively. "Ice cream," she prompted. "Hello…"

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

Diane sighed. "You have so much to learn. See here — a man is going out with a woman. He buys her ice cream. They sit and talk." She waved her hands. "Ringing a bell?"

I did not like this idea. I did not tell her this. "No," I replied. "But okay."

I walked up to the vendor, making sure to keep my hands out of Diane's reach. She seemed to suddenly have this urge to touch them, which both confused and alarmed me.

"Go on," she prompted. "Talk to him. Oh, and I want vanilla."

"Hello," I said.

Diane did what kids these days would call a "facepalm".

"I would…like to buy one vanilla ice cream," I said awkwardly. I hesitated, unsure if I should get one too. I thought of the other couple. The man had been eating ice cream too. "And one chocolate," I added hastily.

The vendor got them and sent a wry grin towards Diane, who seemed to get the message that I didn't understand. Mortals were strange, I mused. I slid him some American money and gingerly accepted the cones, making sure not to touch his skin as I did so. As I gave Diane hers, I tried not to let her fingers brush mine. It was hard, considering that she seemed to be trying to achieve the opposite.

The other couple had left, so we circled around to the other side of the fountain and sat down. I made a point of sitting a good foot away from Diane. Never before had we ever been so physically close, and it was alarming me. I did not want to touch her. I could not and would not…

But — gods, she was so beautiful. The April breeze ruffled her hair as if it was playing with the golden locks, and the amber light of the setting sun illuminated the perfect features that rivaled even Aphrodite's. She'd finished her ice cream already and mine was melting all over my hand. I realized I was staring and tore my gaze away.

Diane noticed the sharp movement and frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said, and put my melting ice cream into my mouth.

"You're avoiding me," she stated.

"No I'm not," I replied, which might have sounded better and more convincing had there not been chocolate ice cream in my mouth.

"Yes, you are," she insisted. "It's like you're scared of touching me."

"I'm not scared," I said, looking away and wiping off my mouth.

"You're a horrible liar, Thanatos."

The use of my real name yanked me back into focus. I snapped my head around to face her. "Don't say — "

* * * TWO UNSPOKEN WORDS * * *

"my name"

I never finished.

Diane grabbed my shoulders, pulled me close, and pressed her lips against mine before I could warn her of the danger.

* * *

…**And so I return with my cliffhanging-tendencies.**

**There's really no reason why you **_**shouldn't **_**review.**


	11. Part Four: The Healer's Kiss

Fear.

For a moment, that's all I felt.

* * * THE FEELINGS THAT COME WITH A KISS * * *

Terror.

Blinding, paralyzing white terror.

Then a hint of red passion

and the comforting warmth of

her soft mortal hands pulling

your cold immortal body in.

Your eyes begin to close and

you start to enjoy it.

It's so warm, so comforting,

so surprisingly _human._

Then you remember that she is now going to die

and the terror comes back.

I pulled away.

In all honesty, that might be an exaggerated term for the jerking action of panicked escape I put into play. In fact I nearly fell into the fountain.

I cannot clearly recount my thought process at the moment, but I can tell you that I think my other forms scattered across the world dropped their souls, or lost their shadow paths, or messed up in some way. Whatever they did, it was because of Diane. I shook my head, gasped, then in an action of fear looked up to see if she was dead.

She stared back at me, completely alive and looking quite shocked. "I…I'm sorry," she stammered, tearing her gaze away. "I didn't — I couldn't — I'm so sorry…"

I didn't know what had happened. Tentatively I slid closer towards her, reached out, and touched the back of her hand. I feared that she would fall over, stone dead, but instead, after a brief moment of fearful tension, her sky eyes alit and she smiled shyly. Gently, softly, her other hand came over and clasped over mine, trapping it within her slender, callused fingers. The sensation of physical contact was interesting, if that could possibly be the word. Like nothing I had ever felt before. I didn't exactly know how to describe it. Close, maybe. Warm. Nice.

She was _alive._

Somehow, in my countless eons of lifeless living, I had very little experience in casually touching a living human being, and I recall that whenever I had come into physical contact with one, they had died immediately after. Well, except for Herakles and that Sisyphus fellow, but those didn't count. I will admit that the only reason Herakles managed to overpower me and Sisyphus ever chained me was because those were the only two times I had ever fallen asleep on the job, due to a few unfortunately-timed spats with, yes, you guessed it, Hypnos. They barely even touched my skin, the cowards — the son of Athena who'd written the accounts had said nothing about that and every artist who tried to paint that picture got it completely wrong. I was practically snoring on my wings, for Hades' sake; you think I could've put up a fight?

* * * AN UNNECESSARY INTERJECTION * * *

Yes, I think Herakles is a coward.

He's an idiot, too.

And I really don't think you want to argue with me.

Now that I thought about it, though, everyone that I had ever come into physical contact with was usually quite angry with me, and the feeling had always been mutual. See, I will not deny my sadistic streak. But I will not deny my fear, either — somewhere deep in my subconscious, a primal terror lurked. It was a fear that I would kill even the ones I loved, that I would sentence them to me before their time.

So I had vowed never to love, hence preventing my personal sorrow and the pain of my beloved.

But when I had seen this girl — this strong, broken, hate-filled girl with a passion for life and a well-founded grudge against me — I couldn't not stop and stare. I couldn't help but fall in love with her.

"You're supposed to be dead," I finally managed to say.

Diane's shyness fell away and she raised an eyebrow. "Um…are you disappointed?"

"No," I objected, "that's not what I meant. I meant…" I took in a deep, unnecessary breath and prepared to start a sentence I didn't know how to finish. "I meant that…I've never…"

"Touched a human being and let them live?"

Hesitantly, I nodded.

Her eyes widened a bit, maybe in curiosity. "It's true, isn't it?" she asked. "That you can kill people with a touch?"

I was surprised that she knew this. "How did you know?"

"I studied Greek mythology as an elective course in high school," she explained. "I found out that one of my friends was a demigod, and she explained the Mist, and so I was hooked. That's…how I knew about you."

I didn't really hear what she said. I was a bit overwhelmed as it was, and my frankly quite stupid mind was working overtime as it was.

"A kiss," I finally managed to say. "A kiss is an action of love." I frowned and stared at her. "Isn't it?"

Diane smiled mysteriously. "If you like."

And I instantly knew there was no turning back now.

I was okay with that.

* * *

**Reviews are update fuel.**


	12. Casual Questions & Formal Interrogations

**Girloveswaffles5: Heh. Hehehe. You're more right than you know.**

**DreamingStars1: Thank you, I was worried about her Mary-Sue-ness and all, but…  
O.O  
You mean, "when she kissed **_**him**_**"?  
Because I don't really recall writing anything other than that, and I didn't think she's that type…**

* * *

It was a simple question and I asked her it as I drove her home (I was in the form of a mortal so it would not look as if the car was driving itself). I did not know why I had not asked it before.

* * * MY QUESTION * * *

"Why?"

She just looked at me. "Why what?" she asked.

"Why," I repeated. "No, where — where's the hatred? Why do you love me?"

I kept my eyes on the road but I think she was smiling. "Thanatos, only you would be so direct."

It was a comment, not an answer. I waited and continued driving.

Diane sighed. "I don't know," she finally replied. "You're not what I thought you would be."

"And that is…?" I prompted.

"You mean, what I thought you would be?"

"Yes."

"Well," here she hesitated, "I thought you'd be more…malicious, maybe. Vengeful. Bloodthirsty. Not…" She sighed. "Not the kind of person who would sing a grown woman a lullaby when she couldn't sleep at night. Who holds children's souls in his arms and strokes their hair."

So maybe she could see the souls. I never found out if she really could and she never told me directly.

I was quiet.

Neither of us said a word until I had to leave. The car was parked, and Diane stood in her apartment doorway. I stood in front of her.

"Thank you," she said.

I said nothing. I just kissed her cheek, then turned and left.

* * *

I visited her twelve times in the next three months. We talked, we went out to eat, we even went out to see a movie.

We were happy.

But I wasn't careful.

Little more than ten minutes after the conclusion of my twelfth visit, Hades called me down to the Underworld.

* * *

"I have noticed," said Hades upon my arrival in his main office, "a change."

I nodded. "Yes, the weather has been beautiful this summer. Persephone is doing a wonderful job with her blossoms." Oh, how I loved teasing Hades. He never had the good sense to know when I was mocking him.

My boss scowled. "I did not mean the weather. I meant in your work."

"What about it?"

"I've noticed that you have been…oh, I don't know…slacking off, perhaps?"

My heart skipped a beat. I couldn't have missed a soul, could I have?

Hades read the question in my eyes. "Oh yes," he said, reaching for one of the drawers of his mahogany desk and pulling out a file. "Forgotten Souls: Andrea Roberts, age 42, of Los Angeles, California. Niall Brownstone, age 84, of Dublin, Ireland. Sarita Patel, age 7, of New Delhi, India." He continued to read off names, ages, and locations as I tried to remember how to blink and breathe. Not that I needed to, in any case.

Finally, after twenty-three counted souls, he looked up and met my eyes, one stringy eyebrow raised inquisitively. "And all," he said, "within the last month. Do you want to know how many you've missed in the past three months?" He didn't wait for me to reply, nor would I have been able to even if he had given me a chance. He slammed his fist down on his desk. _"Sixty two."_

I gaped, quite ridiculously if I must be honest. "What — how — why?"

"That," Hades said, "is what I am trying to ask _you."_

I wet my lips and shook my head. "I don't understand," I said. "I've never missed so many in three _decades, _much less three months! I — "

"Have been up to something," Hades finished, putting down the list and folding his arms.

It finally sunk in. Diane. I'd been so preoccupied with her that I'd slacked off. But no, I couldn't tell Hades. I'd been working with (not for, mind you) this god ever since his brothers had booted him down here. I knew him well and knew that if he knew that the cause of my distraction was a mortal woman, he'd fry her the first chance he got.

I could not risk that. So I resolved not to tell him.

"Might it involve a woman named Diane Javensen?" Hades smirked.

_ So much for not telling Hades._

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said with a completely straight face.

Hades' eyebrow arched higher. "Oh really?"

"Yes really," I replied.

"Then what's this?"

He held up a piece of paper. I accepted it and looked.

I couldn't help myself. I swore aloud, managing to turn it into a cough just in time.

Some moron had snapped a picture of Diane and me just as her lips had first touched mine. Behind us was the fountain. In the picture, my eyes were half closed and I looked like I was about to pass out. Diane looked extremely proud of herself.

I had a bad feeling that Hypnos had had something to do with the existence of the picture.

No, not Hypnos. On second thought, it might have very well been Mother…or possibly Eros…

* * * A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE * * *

I searched, but I never found out who really took the picture.

Something tells me that it was Herakles finally getting his revenge.

But that might just be paranoia.

Finally I decided what to tell Hades.

"That," I said, "is some idiot who just so happens to look a lot like me."

"Gold eyes," Hades said, his eyebrow still cocked.

I glanced back at the picture. Yes, what little I could see of my eyes was very much gold.

"I have wings," I pointed out, somewhat obviously if I must admit.

"Not when you're disguised as a mortal."

I kept trying. "That's not me, Hades. I didn't kiss anyone and I am not in love with a mortal. I've just been a bit tired the past few months and it has nothing to do with any woman."

"You're a horrible liar, you know."

I took in a deep breath to continue, but then I realized that it was pointless. "Fine," I said through gritted teeth, "I admit it. Go ahead."

Hades looked thoroughly confused. "Go ahead and do what?"

"Go ahead," I repeated. "Vaporize her."

"Vaporize her?" Hades echoed. "Why would I do that?"

Confused, I explained my reasons for thinking so.

"No," Hades said, standing and gazing at the fireplace, "I'm not going to vaporize her now."

I must admit — I sighed in relief. "Thank you, Hades."

"But," Hades continued.

I groaned internally.

"If she remains a problem, know that I will have to for your sake."

I said nothing.

"So I would advise you," he continued, "to stop visiting her before your relationship grows into…an issue."

Silence.

"Thanatos?" Hades asked, still keeping his eyes on the fireplace.

Nothing.

Hades turned around. "Thanatos?"

I had long since left the room.

* * *

**Reviews are update fuel.**


	13. The Synonym of Pain

**Did you guys get the alert for Chapter 12?**

**I didn't, for some reason. Double check, just in case.**

**DreamingStars1: Hehe, it's fine. I do stuff like that all the time.**

* * *

Diane took the news quietly.

When I was done, she threw her arms around me and didn't let go.

"Oh Thana," she whispered, "what are we going to do?"

I was quiet for a long time.

I finally said, "I don't know."

We did not leave our embrace. I do not know how to describe what I felt or what she felt — I am not a nostalgic person and lack experience in verbalizing what emotions I do feel. Saying it felt "good" would be a vast understatement, but it was the only word I had.

Finally, I pulled away. I took her hands in mine and bowed my head over our entwined fingers. I could feel her pulse beating under her skin, her warm soft human skin, and I didn't want to let go.

"I'm going to have to leave," I told her.

She only nodded. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she reached for a brownie from the plate sitting on the coffee table. She looked at it for a few seconds, then put it down. I took her hand as she drew it back and touched my lips to her fingertips.

Her fingers smelled like chocolate.

* * *

* * * THE FAREWELL * * *

I can say little about it

except that it lasted two hours,

took place in Diane's bedroom,

and involved both my and Diane's first personal experiences of sex.

And then I left.

* * *

I have little more to say in this installment of my story.

But I must admit that now I know why.

Why do mortals mourn when a friend passes away?

Why do girls cry when their beloved leaves them?

Why do people fight to save their families?

Because the pain is too much to handle, and they break.

* * * A SYNONYM OF PAIN * * *

goodbye

* * *

**This is not over. No, not even close.**

**Those of you who've read Death's Deception and who know where babies come from will know why.**

**Review?**


	14. The Death of Me

**chocykitty: November 3. That wasn't the entire reason, but yeah, I guess you could say that.**

**Gah! Why are my chapters always so short?**

* * *

If you asked me what happened in the time of the next month or so, I do not think I would have been able to tell you. I walked through my job like a creature that I believe mortals would call a zombie, or maybe a robot. Just a brainless, soulless body with no goal, no sense of direction, just a never-finished job to move through in an endless circle of releasing souls from shells and transporting them to eternity.

I did not cry. I was a bit more emotional and cynical than usual, holding my child clients a little longer than I should have or being more sarcastic with my struggling clients, but I did not cry. I am supposed to be uncaring, cold, even cruel in my ignorance of their pleas for mercy. However, I had never followed this pattern in the first place, settling instead for what might have been described as world-weariness.

Now, I abandoned world-weariness. One side of me became too caring; the other side too much like the sadistic mold that the mortals tried to fit me into.

It didn't exactly help me, though. Hades noticed the change in both my attitude towards him and the statistics — I was missing at least one soul day now, and that was on a good day. Around the world, reports sprang up about people who had seemingly died but came back, or never lost their vital signs though they acted dead, or had lingered for longer than even the most optimistic doctors had predicted. They eventually did come to me, though, when Hades forced me to go back and clean up the mess I'd made.

"I thought I told you," he said coldly once I'd finished cleaning up the fifth week's mess, "to stop flirting with the Javensen girl."

I gave him the world's best me glare. "That," I said, "is the problem."

My boss whirled on me, confusion and frustration written on his ashen face. "What?"

I collapsed in the high-backed cushioned chair opposite Hades' office desk, which I knew would annoy him. It was a clean chair, and I was covered in dust gathered from my travels. I noticed his lips tighten a bit as I leaned back with my dusty cloak rubbing all over the spotless black leather, which caused me great amusement.

"You heard me," I said to Hades. "I'm not seeing Diane anymore. I'm completely focused on my job now." My voice caught on "completely", and I gritted my teeth. "Happy?"

He regarded me curiously. "But if you're not seeing Diane anymore," he said, "then what's the problem?"

I waved my hand in the air and looked away so he wouldn't see my eyes. I was blinking like crazy, trying to keep the tears from forming. "You've fallen in love before," I replied. "What did you feel that first summer when Persephone left?"

An emotion — understanding? — darted briefly across Hades' face, and he sank into his chair. "I…" He took in a deep, shaky breath. "I've gotten used to it now, but that first summer…" Suddenly the lord of the Underworld found a fascination with his shoes. "I felt like I'd lost the will to live."

I was silent as I let this sink in.

He was also silent as it did, and as he raised his head. "Oh."

I smiled humorlessly. "Exactly."

* * * WHAT WE SAW IN THE SILENCE * * *

I, Death, was dying.

* * *

He agreed.

It hadn't taken much to convince him, which surprised me.

And it didn't take long to shadow travel to Diane's apartment to tell her the great news, that I would be back and that I could stay.

* * *

* * * WHAT I DIDN'T KNOW * * *

Fifteen minutes before I arrived,

Diane had been staring, open mouthed,

at a pregnancy test.

* * *

**Of course. Not really a cliffy, because you guys know what's going to happen.**


	15. Life, and the Fight Resulting

When I knocked at her apartment door, I expected her to stare at me, then cry in happiness and leap into my arms when I held them out for the sole purpose of welcoming her into my embrace. We would cry and kiss, and we would be happy again.

At least, that's how I pictured it in my mind.

My mind is, however, sometimes rather skewed from reality, no matter how much of said reality it has witnessed over the eons.

* * *

Diane did not leap into my arms. She was wearing her favorite fuzzy pink bathrobe — the one she'd been wearing when we said goodbye — over soft purple pajamas, and her blond hair was tangled. She looked like she'd just gotten out of bed, but hadn't gotten much sleep while in said bed. Somehow her life aura looked…strange. Fuzzy might be the right word, or blurred, but _doubled _would also suffice. Like there were more than one. It seemed familiar, but I somehow could not pick out where I had seen it before. Her eyes danced with joy and an exhausted yet excited smile lingered at her lips, and she held one finger up to them in the universal gesture for silence.

Confused, I followed as she took my hand and walked into the apartment, then into the bathroom.

Then I stared, uncomprehending, at the small plastic device in her hands and the little blue plus sign. My brain somehow made no sense out of this picture until I met Diane's excited eyes, and until she confirmed it with the words I dreaded to hear.

"Thanatos," she said, her voice shaky with undecided emotion, "you're going to be a father."

I felt my heart leap into my throat (not literally — it's impossible for a person's heart to leap into their throat no matter how scared they are; I of all people would know), and I recall that briefly the world had gone fuzzy and golden. I'd lost control over my physical and mental facilities for a second, and my legs had gone limp from underneath me. I staggered and only barely managed to catch myself on the edge of the sink. I couldn't breathe.

"Are you saying," I managed to gasp after one full minute of unremitting terror, "that I gave _life _to someone?!"

She nodded almost frantically, the emotions in her eyes almost as confused as my thoughts were. Neither of us really knew what to think.

"No," I stammered, "no, no, no…this can't be happening…this is bad. This is really, _really _bad."

Diane's brow furrowed in that cute way it did when she was beginning to doubt someone's sanity. "Thana," she asked tentatively, putting her hand on my shoulder, "are you okay? I understand that it's a bit of a shock, but…"

"Am I _okay?" _I repeated. "_Am I okay?! _I, the lord and personification of _Death, _gave _life _to someone, and you ask if I am _okay."_

I think I was hyperventilating now, just a little bit. I started feeling a bit light-headed, and suddenly the glowing yellow lights took on an unsettling, discomforting glare.

"You sound like you don't want a child," she deadpanned, keeping her rising anger in check, just for now.

"I don't!" I burst. "A demigod…a child of Thanatos, it's never been heard of before. I didn't even think that it was _possible _for me to give life to a child!"

"Get to the point, Thanatos." Diane crossed her arms over her chest and regarded me with the look that would have otherwise warned me of the dangers of continuing.

However, I had lost most of my logic with the revelation that I was going to be a father, and I forged on. "Diane," I said, finally getting a grip but on the wrong thing, "do you know what _happens _to demigods? Do you know what they become? They're not normal. They're dangerous and angry. And a child of Death…" I couldn't finish.

"Thanatos," Diane shot back, moving her hands down to her side and balling them into fists, "stop it. Having a child should be a blessing, and you're treating it like a curse. What is wrong with you?"

"It is a curse!" I'd lost my grip. I was wild-eyed, unstoppable now. Fear can persuade even Death to lose his cool. "For the kid, it is! Growing up as a demigod — you might not be able to control him, and he'd become unstoppable. And he — they might think of him as a child of Hades, and that'd start another war!"

"Who cares?" Diane had also lost it, and she was advancing on me like a panther on its prey. "Who cares about that now? All that matters is here and now, and that you suck it up and learn how to care for your child like a normal dad would! The only reason the demigods turn out the way they do is because their real parents aren't there to help them grow up!"

This was the last straw. I snapped. "Oh, so now you're blaming it on me?" My words were acid, and I saw their damage eating away at her fire. But I did not stop. "Is that how it is?"

"I did not blame you." Each word was forced out between gritted teeth.

"Yes, you did! See? Now you're lying!"

Hatred bloomed in her eyes — a hatred akin to that I'd seen over twenty-five years ago, in the eyes of a little girl who'd lost her grandpa. "I don't know what's coming over you, Thanatos," she spat, "but whatever it is, you have to stop. _Now."_

I threw my hands up into the air. "All right, then!" I yelled. "I will stop! But don't expect me to see me ever again!"

And with that, I strode out of the door and dove into the nearest shadow I could find.

* * * WHAT I DIDN'T SEE * * *

Diane

stood frozen in the bathroom for a long time.

The pregnancy test fell from her fingers and

clattered on the floor. She staggered over

nothing, leaned over the bathroom sink, and

began to cry.

I did not see these tears until her dying visions.

* * *

**Should I really have to tell you guys to review?**


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